TextBook

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Contents 1 TextBook History 2 To Dos 3 Successful Tests 3.1 Code Element (class="bamtag") 3.2 Superscript Deprecated Flag 3.3 Code Element (class="c-line">) 3.4 Code Element (class="block") 4 Failed Tests 4.1 Code Blocks

TextBook History

I spearheaded TextBook into existence in December 2004, and settled into the role of wiki advocate and manager for a couple of years following.

Somewhere along the line Patrick "hakjoon" Woods was welcomed aboard, and in October 2006 I passed the baton to Patrick as the wiki lead. I then took hiatus from the community for the next two years and saw the birth of my two children.

In June 2008 I slipped back into the community due to disbelief that after 4+ years the textpattern.com site had changed na-da while the rest of the competition moved gloriously forward. I threw down some ideas in the forum, but my real efforts focused on TextBook again, and to integrate it closer with the .com site.

Recently, I implemented the new TextBook skin (TextBook 3) and began an overhaul of the content architecture. My aim is simply to help make TextBook a more intuitive and inviting platform for the community to contribute Txp knowledge to.

The rest of this page is just wiki homework.

To Dos

1. Add a First Steps section after Installation (one sub-section will be "Site Structure")
2. Create starter Tag Reference and FAQs categories for all active languages.
3. Follow up with old Getting Started and Designer and Delevloper Interests pages to recover links and then delete these sub-index pages.
4. Follow up with HTMLDoc installation so the PdfBook extension can be put to use.
5. Separate and cascade style sheets.
6. Refine the floating divs that make up the Index page, if possible.
   • also see template:Destry home test
7. Finish supporting IE6 in the stylesheets.
8. Prepare print stylesheet.
9. Fix code element content size when element is used in a list.

Successful Tests

Code Element (class="bamtag")

Objective: The new tag pages have been retitled and show the syntax for each tag at the top of the page using a code element. It might be nice to provide a special class in this case to really Bam! the syntax prominant.

Test:

<txp:article_custom />

Results: Pass. Nice.

Superscript Deprecated Flag

Objective: To create a visual flag that makes it easy to notate a deprecated features, such as a Textpattern tag attribute.

The align^deprecated attribute.

<sup class="deprecated">[[category_talk:Tag Reference#Deprecated|deprecated]]</sup>

Result: Works, though might be more markup than necessary for this objective.

Code Element (class="c-line">)

Objective: One of the things being adopted is more effective use of wiki templates. One example of many is to create a simple template for quickly updating all the references to the source version number when new releases are made. The problem is you can't use wiki template syntax inside of a pre element set, which is itself used to indicate command-line instructions in user docs. The test below uses a custom code element set instead, styled to appear like a Terminal. This code element permits using the template. The template simply inserts the version number in the source code path, namely 4.2.0.

svn checkout http://textpattern.googlecode.com/svn/releases/4.2.0/source /your/path/to/textpattern/install

Code:

<code class="c-line">svn checkout http://textpattern.googlecode.com/svn/releases/{{Txp current version}}/source /your/path/to/textpattern/install</code>

Result: Pass! Requires block: display; and white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: -moz-pre-wrap; white-space: -o-pre-wrap;.

Code Element (class="block")

Objective: To create a code style that functions like a block element so it can be used in the wiki to replace reliance on the pre element.

Test:

<txp:ign_if_logged_in> <txp:output_form form="client-home" /> <txp:else /> <txp:ign_show_login login_msg="This is the client section contact us for an account" /> </txp:ign_if_logged_in>

Result: Pass! Requires block: display; and white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: -moz-pre-wrap; white-space: -o-pre-wrap;.

Failed Tests

Code Blocks

Objective: To try using this reference to create better block code examples in TxB.

Using if_comments example...

<code><txp:if_comments>
<p><txp:comments_count /> Comments</p>
<txp:else />
<p>No Current Comments</p>
</txp:if_comments></code>

Result: Big time fail! First, I couldn't understand that article's instructions enough to get it to work (though looking at it again, I think I see where I went wrong). Second, and more importantly, messing about with all those tags and entities is stupendously labor-intensive (even if you did understand it), which is completely opposite of what a wiki is all about (doing things easily). Asking someone to use this method to create block code would be like asking them to eat dog shit. No one would do it. We won't be using this.

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